Snow Way To Live

It’s no news to PI readers that we’ve had some snow and winter weather the last couple of days. When it started Sunday afternoon, it was all little-kid, snow-day excitement among those who, unlike us telecommuter-capable drones, might get Monday off. While we got a fun little accumulation Sunday night, all indications on Monday morning were that it was warming up, the snow was softening and I fulfilled a commitment to work in Redmond for the day.

Silly me. On cue, snow started falling at 4:30, and by the time I headed out to my car, the combination of Monday Night Football traffic (didn’t we just have it here? Can’t anyone else host it?) and snow-becoming-ice had absolutely gridlocked the east side. I couldn’t even get in line to wait for a chance to get onto the onramp for the opportunity to sit in 4 lanes of SR520 in order to squeeze down to 3 lanes and finally 2 lanes to get onto the bridge that might stay afloat long enough to deliver me to the onramp to the barely-moving I-5 ship canal bridge. You get the idea. The commute, 17 miles, took 2 1/2 hours. And I was one of the lucky ones, because I actually made it home.

Once home, the aroma of turkey soup suggested persuasively that I skip my trip to my gym, Anderson’s Nautilus, and hunker down with some comfort food, even though I’d skipped my scheduled session there Sunday. A hopeful call to the gym to see if they’d closed early disclosed instead that they would be open as usual, so I bundled up in double-layers and gingerly trotted down there.

Tuesday morning, it would have taken tropical temperatures to convince me to get back out in a car, so I demurred on another bridge crossing and proposed telecommuting instead. This was only partially effective, and I’ll be making up for that today.

I did get out for a walkabout on Tuesday to get some pictures. There weren’t drifts of snow to tromp around in, but it was beastly cold, and my camera (a Canon S3 IS) offered up some anomalies, like sluggish zooming and false battery-out readings. I started out walking through Meridian Playfield:

Click any photo to enlarge

They have the remnants of an orchard on the grounds, and I was startled to see these golden delicious apple trees completely bereft of leaves, yet having many apples intact:

Our local pseudo-Polynesian Trader-Vic clone restaurant, The Luau, seemed to figure, “if life deals you lemons, turn them into Lemon Drops“. The tiki god or whatever looks a little underdressed, and perhaps was wondering if REI can supply some down hula skirts:

And, over on Latona, someone’s plans to sync up with global warming have been temporarily postponed. O Tannenpalm! O Tannenpalm?